Been thinking a lot lately. Exerting myself mentally. Not so much physically. But exercising my mind daily is what I love. If it was this “easy” to exercise physically, well, I would be in well shape. But something drives me to work on projects. Some meaningful, some just practicing and moving my brain cells along the line.

So, this is nothing other than an updating type of post, a snapshot of where my neurons are firing.

1) Been actually practicing typing and using Python everyday. Did you know that the language Python was named after Monty Python’s Flying Circus? Neither did I until finally doing the official tutorial. Why am I practicing typing? I have been using computers since I was about 5, and still I cannot proper type. Sort of embarrassing. Not that though. I just want to type about thinking about typing. This post was written without proper typing. I have finally completed the typing tutor deal on my laptop. And now just need the practice part. I can type at 90+ WPM with this improper style, but the memory obstacle is still there.

That moves me on to Python. Why am I learning yet another language? Well, let me clarify. I am not the master of any one language. Python just seems so sensible to me. Good language to finally master. It comes on every Mac and Linux install. It can do all of my automation tasks that I dearly not need waste time on. Filling out FDS files based on numbers in a CSV file. Searching through PDF files for a server. Or making a post-processor for FDS output files. I love the direct-ness of the language. To print something is “print ‘hello world”. And that’s it. No braces, no output specifiers, no weird containing characters, no declarations, and so on.

2) Finished the Four-Hour Work Week. Amazing book. It is the first book that I am going to buy ever since giving away a huge percentage of my books about six months ago. I am now tasked with actually making something tangible that the rest of the world can use (and will pay for). The book is not just a business book, but a book about lifestyle, travel, and the philosophy of modern culture.

I now have to think about what I can provide to benefit masses of people. Perhaps the biggest thinking outside experiment that I have ever done. This can be difficult for my idealistic mind, but is totally possible. Since I retired in the month of August in 2006, this is certainly a key element in keeping myself financially supported - but avoiding the traps of an 80-hour per week self business. I do hope to develop my website with more FDS videos and info. This website or another, I am not sure. Hobby or “business”, I am not yet sure. Time and experiences will tell.

3) Travel. Need more travel and exploring. The above points will actually help with this in my abstract mind.

4) Graduate school politics. My fire science hero has a terrible relationship with my future grad. school advisor, department, and school. Yay. All I want is meaningful work, and I hope that they all understand that. To think that my next two years of work might be thrown away is 1000x times worse than saying I would never be paid for the work. I will do my best, as always. My future advisor posed the question of why should an entity contribute to an open-source worldwide project who did not fund them directly. Why should he post the “results” for free. This violated one of my primary values in life. I immediately thought of Linux, KDE, Google, and tons of other open source projects that were not directly funded by those agencies themselves but have benefited the lives of millions based on contributed work.

Hell, I have been contributing to the FDS project for “free” for the past three years in whatever way that I can, every single day. I would do it for free - because it is one project of many in the world that is meaningful and benefits the world. It even has the bonus of saving lives through better fire protection design. So, I took that comment with a hard heart and looked back on the past 2 years as I have been earning a McDonald’s salary to teach, research, and contribute to a meaningful project. Priorities.

To leave on a good note, as I should, I have emailed several contacts around the US and the world about future travel and research opportunities. We will see what happens! Have a fantastic week.

My next book and subject to attack: The Four-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. Why did I get this book? I read his blog which has very original ideas related to successfully taking in massive amounts of information or otherwise controlling the flow of it in order to actually achieve what we all give up ourselves into technology for: a simple and enjoyable life.

Essentially, from what I know about the book and its philosophy is that it will offer ways for you to distance yourself from trading time for money by working on systems for your business instead of doing work directly. He also lays out ways to only check your email a couple of times a day (or in a more recent post, never check your email by teaching other people to think like you and respond for you). There is a theme in his message about outsourcing tedious and time-consuming tasks.

What do I expect out of this book? Well, while it seems a big more geared towards CEOs or entrepreneurs on their way to businessdom, I still know that I can soak in and apply some of his ideas to other random areas of my life. I fear the idea of a businessman hippie although I do enjoy checking and responding to emails throughout my working and playing day; it is seemingly a part of my reputation as a worker/nerd/geek. I also respect professors and professional contacts who will respond to my emails within a few hours, or at least the same day. Any other professional contacts who take longer than a day or two to respond, I can’t really take them seriously in life or in mind - just an effect of growing up in these modern days I suppose.

My thoughts on this topic can be summed up by: laid back and meditative, but idly spinning ideas and communicating to others. Of course, we will see what I actually get out of the book.

Continuing with the train of thought about indecision and near-unlimited choices that I feel, here is another excerpt from the book The Paradox of Choice that I would like to share [emphasis mine]:

“[...] decisions like these force indecision. Students take time off, take on odd jobs, try out internships, hoping that the right answer to the “What should I be when I grow up?” question will emerge. [...] It is hard to avoid the conclusion that my students might be better off with a little less talent or with a little more sense that they owe it to their families to settle down back home, or even a dose of Depression-era necessity–take the secure job and get on with it!
 
With fewer options and more constraints, many trade-offs would be eliminated, and there would be less self-doubt, less of an effort to justify decisions, more satisfaction, and less second-guessing of the decisions to be made.”
 
- The Paradox of Choice - Barry Schwartz

Anyone? I am twisted with this thought. While I agree with it in the day to day sense with certain decisions, my mind now embraces the abundance of second-guessing that goes on with long-term decisions and roles in life.

Friend Julia commented on the previous post and seemingly felt a mental poke from the words from the book as well. I share the idea that a flow of immersive experiences, ideas, and creations are what make life exploration stand on its own. And it is interesting to note that this sort of meta-life exists on top of the foundation of unlimited choices. Whether an artist pursuing performance and enrichment alongside an art degree or myself pursuing a fire protection degree while abstracted and bewildered by nature and expression, there is a new form of experience in life that I see when I look around at a certain demographic of our generation.

Of course, this idea deeply disturbs those who seek to settle. But not to those who search for a state of mindfulness. For I am satisfied and fulfilled in the randomness that exists in a long and winding motorcycle trip, or living with my belongings out of two small bags, or getting lost in a differential equation that described the fuel reaction and consumption of a fuel under fire.

Something in my mind that embraces randomness is broken. In the good way.

I’ve just finished a book entitled The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. I also copied and highlighted some key parts as I always do with books since I usually borrow them from the library stacks or interlibrary loans. Certain pages of the book spoke right to me and will certainly influence my near and far futures. And I think that from the last chapter mainly, the book will indirectly influence the way that I make decisions, big and small, and with that leave a lasting daily taste in my mouth: a taste of comfort in the overwhelming modern world of information and knowledge.

Here is an excerpt from the middle of the book [emphasis mine]:

“While students at many colleges are happy to discover a subject to study that not only do they enjoy but that will enable them to make a living, many of the students that I teach have multiple interests and capabilities. These students face the task of deciding on the one thing that they want to do more than anything else. Unconstrained by limitations of talent, the world is open to them.
 
Do they exult this opportunity? Not most of the ones I talk to. Instead, they agonize: Between making money and doing something of lasting social value. Between challenging their intellects and exercising their creative impulses. Between work that demands single-mindedness and work that will enable them to lead balanced lives. Between work they can do in a beautifully pastoral location and work that brings them to a bustling city. Between any work at all and further study.
 
With a decision as important as this, they struggle to find the reasons that make one choice stand out above all others.”
 
- The Paradox of Choice - Barry Schwartz

And well: that resounds into the past college years of my life like no other. I like to think of myself proficient in the modern age of time-wasting devices, loads of information, and deceptive items of value. Yet with all of the opportunity laid out before one’s self, we reach a state of bliss and un-motion. This is evidenced by looking back on this very day, a day for me of photographing in a cemetery with a rudimentary understanding of exposures and composition, having a delicious bowl of seafood Pho and wondering how I can make it, wandering about a craft store glaring at the pastels/fancy paper/technical drafting kits, watching a lecture about high performance computing, and finishing off the day by burning a fire model of a church (for research purposes of course).

While I am a big proponent of randomness and a wide range of inputs, I am also a succumber of the pleasures of random input and a productive intake of massive amounts of information. This leaves me feeling adrift in a sea of decisions, which leads to indecision. Luckily, the book that I just mentioned talks of some ideas during the closing chapter. Not solutions, but guides to help you walk across the sea of paralysis. Instead of always looking back and wondering, I just don’t think there is a use in pondering the fourth dimension. Unless, of course, you are also interested in philosophical exercises as one of your too-many hobbies.

Either tonight or tomorrow, I am going to pursue the action of writing a to learn list (see here). Whether or not this will help with the multitude of choice that has materialized in front of me for the past years; I don’t know. But I have a deep and comforting feeling that while it will not make a difference in happiness, it will certainly grow and satiate my soul; and so I share these thoughts with you.

I sat in a three-hour long class today, browsing over random websites trying to seek valuable information and input for myself. I digress though. The class is supposed to teach students efficacy with computers, programming, and applied engineering concepts. The first half of the course will use Excel, and the second half will use Visual Basic. Both are tools which are not freely available and actually quite expensive in the latter case; tools that are built upon using proprietary formats and working with others leads to specific idiosyncrasies.

Why does the modern education system do this, even at the university level? Think about it. If you submitted the above purposely-vague course description in order to have a class formed, who would approve that mess? Who would want to take that class? A class that closes your mind and limits your exposure, the opposite of what you should be doing at this time; exposing your mind to tons of different random inputs, tools, methods, and opportunities in the world.

Furthermore, instead of learning how to adapt and use existing solutions and integrate them into your wonderful tool pouch, the students distantly type up examples from a non-existent space in a book and go home for the week. Going home and never again caring or wondering how technological tools can help them and challenge them to the point that it will change the way that they work, think, and solve problems.

When I worked in the summer of 2007 at a research firm in Maryland, I got to use any tool that I wished to solve an endless number of problems (my dream environment), as long as the results could be effectively communicated, shared, and built upon by all other participants in the problem. Of course, I had to use MS Word and Excel a couple of times, but I did not let that limit me. I must have gone through using over 50 different applications, many times on just a single problem. I used MATLAB, R, FORTRAN, Google Docs, Perl, Python, PHP, TextWrangler, SigmaPlot, OpenOffice, NeoOffice, Linux, Mac OS X, GMail, Gimp, Photoshop, Illustrator, Applescript, shell scripts, Google Video, Google Code, Google Apps, Google Groups, CyberDuck, SmartFTP, SmartSVN, TeXShop, and tons of other tools, many of which were free and open source.

And that is not to say that I am an expert in any or all of those applications, but that I have the engineering ability (I use this in the traditional and broad lifelong sense of the word) to be able to know when to use a certain tool, how to fit it to my needs, and how to use it efficiently. Being able to pick up any tool for a job from cold and cater it to your needs is certainly a skill that will separate you from 90% of your peers in school, work, life, relationships, and personal progression.

That being said, how does one teach this skill to a class of engineering students who may or may not know that they want or need this dexterity and competence? Well, how does one learn the skill in the first place? I think that when a problem arises, any problem at all be it an assignment, a task, or a hobby, one starts to look for answers in places that he or she is formerly comfortable with. This usually means that they miss out on a well-structured Google search where the answer would have been right in front of them in this collaborative world, waiting for them to use it and mold it to their needs. But the students continue on, not aware of the opportunity and challenges that are waiting to enrich their daily lives.

“How do I insert the footer here?” “How do I log into the wireless?” “What formula will show today’s date?” Please, for the love of all that is spinal, use the help file, use Google, use your minds in this environment that is not only openly and excitedly available to you, but that you are paying about 500 dollars to be purposely surrounded by! If most of the time is spent adjusting margins and Excel specific commands and headers and print previews, where will the guts of learning and inspiration come from? I do not mean for this to be a generic rant, but rather a resounding and powerful call to these types of courses and professors to turn around and challenge the intellect of the student in solving problems and furthering their thinking capacity in life. Anyone can achieve this if they try and are provoked in just the right way that stimulates that certain passionate part of their mind.

For instance, consider a slightly disorganized and unformatted spreadsheet that effectively and elegantly solves a problem in which the student spent 3 hours on the solution and 5 minutes on the design. I would much like to see this sort of result and output rather than a spread of pretty colors and fonts that only serves to find the area of a circle - go and solve something real. Come on mentors, teachers, and those in charge of challenging us as humans: summon our great and collective minds!